So Josh Marshall says

[Jackpine Radical]

http://www.talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/week_2004_06_27.php#003106

The forged Niger documents originated in the White House, and the Financial Times story is pre-emptive disinformation.

I have some problems with this whole business.

First, those forgeries were really, I mean really clumsy. Considering the stakes, and that we were going to use them for purposes such as conning the Brits, don’t you think an Administration-sponsored forgery would be better than that? Like, at least have the names and signatures of officials from the right time period on them, and be on stationery that was actually in use at the time the docs were dated? How hard can that be, when you’ve got Federal resources and at least some tame spooks working for you? Jeez.

Second, people are proclaiming this the story that’s gonna bring down the House of Bush. Nuts. If the original story didn’t get them, this elaboration on it isn’t gonna do it either. The press will ignore it, it will go no further than TPM, and nobody will feel forced to even acknowledge the story, let alone give it any space.

Please, somebody, convince me otherwise.
Somebody?
Please?

[AP]

1. White House could have been relying on someone who set them up.

I don't picture Bush with his crayolas trying to draw these up, but I can see him approving something he didn't know was bad.

[demgrrrll]

3. I think it is a thread of a larger story. I think that there are

different pieces of this story that may converge and accompany the indictments.

[On the Road]

2. I Didn't Read the Column That Way

Josh's words ("Let's say that certain individuals or organizations are responsible for some rather unfortunate misdeeds...") could apply no matter who forged them.

I am waiting with bated breath to see Josh's story, though. He's not one to kid.

[librechik]

13. me neither--and I remember him pointing out an item in a Hersh

article ("The StovePipe?" Just guessing)where some source speculates that CIA agents faked the documents in order to fake out the Bushies and make them look bad. So of course, I would prefer it to be a WH op who did it, but I don't think that's what Josh is going to "tectonically" say.

[Bolo Boffin]

4. If the documents were a sting of Cheney's stovepipe

That would account for the sloppy facts - the CIA would want to disprove the documents easily. They then would have demonstrated why the stovepipe needed to be dismantled, and Cheney would have relented, right?

But then Cheney grabs the documents and uses them as a CYA to force the CIA into ending their resistance to the Chalabi intelligence. Now he's got proof that CIA agents willfully tried to deceive the President. Scandal city! But all can be right with the world if the CIA will play ball with Chalabi's crew.

[Jackpine Radical]

6. That's a very interesting theory.

But...why would the WH have then involved Wilson, why would they have sent him at all, if they knew there was no story to bring back? Especially since his wife was a WMD specialist...?

[Bolo Boffin]

10. CIA sent Wilson

They told him that the Vice President was interested in the Niger story, so go check it out. He does, and reports back nada, no way. This was in response to "European intelligence" according to the Financial Times, and Britain qualifies as part of Europe.

The CIA knew there was no story, but Cheney is pressing them. So the CIA sends Wilson. He brings back "no story, duh." It's not enough for Cheney.

And the documents show up in October, in an effort to embarass Cheney privately.

By the way, Seymour Hersch reports that the story is that a group of retired CIA operatives forged the documents, figuring the administration would flaunt the documents at a meeting and the CIA guys would say, oh look, duh, fake, where you getting this, Chalabi?

But Cheney caught on somehow and turned it on them. So the Presidential claims of Niger selling yellowcake to Iraq are based on forged documents and discredited British intelligence. And Cheney knew it.

[JaySherman]

5. You might want to read this...

It's long, but well worth it.

http://www.fromthewilderness.com/free/ww3/060804_coup_detat.html

COUP D'ETAT:
The Real Reason Tenet and Pavitt Resigned from the
CIA on June 3rd and 4th

Bush, Cheney Indictments in Plame Case Looming

by
Michael C. Ruppert

additional reporting by
Wayne Madsen from Washington

JUNE 8, 2004 1600 PDT (FTW) - Why did DCI George Tenet suddenly resign on June 3rd, only to be followed a day later by James Pavitt, the CIA's Deputy Director of Operations (DDO)?

The real reasons, contrary to the saturation spin being put out by major news outlets, have nothing to do with Tenet's role as taking the fall for alleged 9/11 and Iraqi intelligence "failures" before the upcoming presidential election.

Both resignations, perhaps soon to be followed by resignations from Colin Powell and his deputy Richard Armitage, are about the imminent and extremely messy demise of George W. Bush and his Neocon administration in a coup d'etat being executed by the Central Intelligence Agency. The coup, in the planning for at least two years, has apparently become an urgent priority as a number of deepening crises threaten a global meltdown.

Based upon recent developments, it appears that long-standing plans and preparations leading to indictments and impeachment of Bush, Cheney and even some senior cabinet members have been accelerated, possibly with the intent of removing or replacing the entire Bush regime prior to the Republican National Convention this August.

/snip

[Jackpine Radical]

7. Thanks--I've seen it. I'm apparently missing the connection to

the "insider angle" on the Niger story, though.

[althecat]

11. Ruppert claims that a loyal CIA cabal forged the docs to set up bush...

Frankly I think this is hard to believe...

[Bolo Boffin]

15. As an attempt to unseat Bush from power? Nah...

I agree that's over the top.

But as a method of discrediting Cheney's stovepipe to Chalabi and Crew's dark whispers? I see that as much more likely, and that's what Seymour Hersch says here:

http://www.newyorker.com/fact/content/?031027fa_fact

But I have to hand it to Ruppert here - he's not far wrong. And that's a lot coming from me.

[DrBB]

8. It could be a bit hyped. On t'other hand

...I think if someone has hard evidence that the Administration was deliberately faking evidence for their scariest claims about Iraq--not just hyping the intel a bit, but actively creating fraudulent evidence, a criminal act--and then compounding that crime by the crime of "outing" the wife of the guy who exposed their fakery, well, that's gonna hurt. That is beyond the pale, even by Reichpublican standards, leastways if you get caught at it.

And the deepest flaw in your position, of course, is your assumption of competence on the part of these bozos--that they would have at least created a believable forgery. They have done nothing--especially Cheney, font of all the administration's worst ideas--to justify that assumption.

on edit: just to fill that last point out a bit: you describe the forgery as, in so many words, a totally amateurish production. But "amateur"--that ultimate insult in the world of intelligence professionals--is the neo-con hallmark. Distrust of the official (read, professional) intel services, and a go-it-alone, do-it-yourself attitude. No one who has read about Feith's amateur sleuthing operations trying to confirm Loonie Laurie Mylroie's half-baked theories about Saddam and 9/11 would EVER accuse these guys of competence in intelligence matters.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Yeah. My "assumption of competence."

That's a whole 'nother topic, but I dig what you mean. I don't think Bush, Rove & co. could survive 2 seconds on a level playing field without a bought press & a moribund Democratic Party. The Law of Gravity seems to have been inverted for people like them. Every time they stumble, they fall upwards.

[DrBB]

12. It's the one thing we can be confident about with these guys

See my hasty addendum to that last post--and obviously we're in total agreement on this point. The whole history of this administration could be described as a series of maneuvers to forestall or distract from the exposure of sickening ineptitude.

[troublemaker]

14. Did JM really say the forged documents originated in the White House?

I didn't read him as saying that. The WH is a possibility and a fun story and may well be the story, but if they originated in Israel and were peddled to Cheney intentionally that could be almost as embarrassing.

[fizzana]

16. My guess is that it originated somewhere in the Administration

Part of that might be wishful thinking but remember it was the CIA who first debunked the story. Also Sy Hersh's original story that it was some ex-CIA agents wouldn't hold if Josh's prediction that this could cause a tectonic shift in Washington.

My guess is either someone in Cheney's office or the OSP in the under Douglas Feith. Bear in mind that this is an administration that believes it can do virtually anything and still get away with it. Could Dick Cheney's testiness be a signal?

One thing the Bush administration has been able to do very successfully is maintain plausible deniability regarding all the Iraqi intelligence. Their argument that they were victims of bad intelligence and had acted in good faith still cannot be disproved by any concrete evidence.

If, and it still a big if, people in the Bush administration did forge the documents and it can be proved, their whole defense regarding bad intelligence collapses. I'm no constitutional lawyer but it would seem to me that forging documents that are then used to justify going to war sails pretty close to treason.

If true, there is no doubt that very serious criminal charges will result, and even if it doesn't reach the top, Bush's credibility will be absolutely shot among a significant section of the voting population that could still go either way in November.

Also, if true, the media will not ignore this. Ultimately most of the media (Fox & other right wing hacks excluded) are whores above all else and a good story is a good story and this could turn out to be as juicy as Watergate, if not more so.